American Jews, this is your war, too

Hamas doesn’t care whether you support Netanyahu or not. When Jews are murdered for being Jews, unity must come before politics.

Let’s be honest: Benjamin Netanyahu is not everyone’s favorite politician. That’s fair. Debate over policy, leadership and politics is healthy in any democracy, including Israel’s. But there comes a point in times of war when internal disagreements must be set aside.

Because this war is not about Bibi. It is about Israel’s survival. And the Jewish people, especially American Jews, must not let personality distract from principle.

Photo by Chaim Goldberg/Flash90.

Since the Hamas-led terrorist attacks on Oct. 7, 2023, Israel has faced a military, moral and psychological assault of unprecedented complexity. Hamas’s slaughter of 1,200 people and the kidnapping of 250, including children, the elderly and entire families, was not just a “battle.” It was a pogrom, fueled by genocidal ideology and celebrated openly by its perpetrators. Yet today, Israel is the one on trial in the court of public opinion, not the murderers who triggered the war.

Hamas doesn’t care whether you support Netanyahu or not. When Jews are murdered for being Jews, unity must come before politics.

 

What Israel faces in Gaza is not a conventional war or even a typical counterterrorism campaign. It is asymmetric warfare against a terrorist organization that intentionally uses its own civilians as tools of war. Hamas stores weapons in schools, digs tunnels under hospitals and launches rockets from densely populated neighborhoods. It steals food aid from the population. This is not incidental; it is strategy.

 

Hamas leaders have made this explicit. In 2008, Fathi Hammad, then Hamas’s interior minister, declared:  “For the Palestinian people, death has become an industry. … This is why they have formed human shields of the women, the children, the elderly and the mujahideen.”

 

What sane person would say that?

 

That’s not rhetoric; it’s policy. Hamas relies on images of dead civilians, especially children, to inflame world opinion and pressure Israel into submission. Tragically, too many in the West, including some Jewish voices, fall for this manipulative theater. They call for ceasefires, condemn Israeli “disproportionality” and wring their hands at the humanitarian crisis, while ignoring how Hamas engineers that crisis.

 

But put this in perspective. During the U.S.-led assault on ISIS in Mosul from 2016 to 2017, between 9,000 and 11,000 civilians were estimated to have died, according to The New York Times. That battle, fought by Western militaries with advanced precision weaponry, still resulted in tens of thousands of casualties. No one accused the United States of genocide. No one proposed sanctions.

 

Yet Israel, which goes to unprecedented lengths to warn civilians, including dropping leaflets, making phone calls and pausing operations to allow evacuations, is treated like a rogue state.

 

The moral asymmetry here is staggering. Hamas celebrates death. Israel mourns it, even when forced to cause it to protect its own people.

 

And yet, Western diplomats—many from countries that have never faced a single rocket attack—dare to lecture Israel on restraint. The European Union, Canada and even the United States have called for a “ceasefire,” as if peace can be restored by papering over mass murder.

 

Some American Jews have joined that chorus, distancing themselves from Israel out of discomfort with its current government. That’s not just misguided. It’s dangerous.

 

Hamas doesn’t hate Israel because of the policies of Netanyahu and his government. It hates Israel because it exists. Article 13 of the Hamas Charter states: “There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through jihad.”

 

Diplomacy, negotiation, peace-building? “All are a waste of time,” the document says.

 

This is the enemy Israel is fighting. An enemy backed by Iran and Qatar, supplied by global jihad networks and committed—openly, unapologetically—to the eradication of the Jewish state.

 

To our fellow Jews in the Diaspora, especially in America: This war is about you, too. Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran don’t care whether you vote Likud or Labor, whether you’re Orthodox, Conservative, Reform or unsure. On Oct. 7, Hamas murdered Thai farm workers and Israeli Bedouin alongside Jews. Their hatred is not nuanced. It is total.

 

And as antisemitism, let’s call it what it is—Jew-hatred—surges on campuses, in public squares, and online, it’s clear that Hamas’s war against Israel is fueling a broader war against Jews everywhere. This is not just a political crisis but a civilizational one.

 

So, what is the role of American Jews?

 

It is to stand with Israel—not conditionally, not reluctantly and not just when it’s easy. It is to reject the moral fog that equates a democratic state defending its citizens with a terrorist group that hides behind children. It is to recognize that you can critique Israeli policy at another time, but right now, we must remain united.

 

To those who are hesitant, ask yourself this: Would you demand moral perfection from any other country under siege? Would you have told Britain in 1940 to cease fire until Winston Churchill stepped down?

 

Israel’s democracy will sort out its leadership in due time. However, today, it needs our solidarity. Our advocacy. Our unapologetic defense in the face of global slander.

 

As the Psalmist wrote: “He who watches over Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps.” But Israel still needs us to stay awake—and to stand up.

Stephen M. Flatow

This column originally appeared on JNS.ORG.  You can read it and others by me here.

It’s not ‘anti-Arab’ to criticize an Arab supporter of terrorism

My column from JNS.ORG about western Jewish liberal reaction to events in Israel.

It’s not ‘anti-Arab’ to criticize an Arab supporter of terrorism

Eight Jewish organizations this week signed a public statement accusing Israel of being, in effect, a racist state. Seven of them were left-of-center groups whose harsh criticism of Israel is old news. But one of them was the National Council of Jewish Women, a venerable American Jewish organization that ordinarily does not associate itself with such vile smears of the Jewish state.

The statement, distributed on July 31 as an Internet advertisement, accused “the Prime Minister and Government Ministers” of Israel of engaging in “shameful and dangerous incitement” against Israel’s Arab citizens.

That is an extremely serious charge. A regime that deliberately incites hatred against citizens of a particular ethnic and racial group is behaving on the moral level of some of the worst authoritarian regimes in memory.

So what’s the evidence? Where’s the proof that the Israeli government has degenerated into a mob of racist inciters?

The declaration cites three pieces of “evidence.”

The first refers to an incident in April. An Israeli news report claimed that some fans at a soccer game in the Israeli Arab village of Sakhnin refused to stand, or even booed, during a moment of silence for Israeli victims of a recent flood. The article was then posted on the Facebook page of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, with a statement by the prime minister calling the fans’ behavior “an utter disgrace.”

Criticizing individuals for their behavior is not “racist,” and it’s not “incitement.” In this case, however, as soon as doubts arose concerning the accuracy of the report, the prime minister’s staff removed it from the Facebook page. Certainly, it was careless of them not to have looked further into the story before publicizing it. But that’s not the same as deliberately and maliciously trying to whip up hatred of all Israeli Arabs.

The other “evidence” in this week’s declaration was even less credible. It pointed to the fact that two cabinet ministers strongly criticized the pro-terrorist statements and actions of Arab Knesset member Ayman Odeh.

The ministers didn’t criticize Odeh for being an Arab. They didn’t call for Arabs to be banned from the Knesset. In fact, they didn’t call for any action against Arabs at all. They called for action against Odeh because of his indisputable record of supporting terrorism and terrorists.

For example, in an interview with Israel Army Radio on Oct. 6, 2015, Odeh was asked about that week’s Palestinian murders of U.S. citizen Eitam Henkin and his wife, Na’ama, in front of their four young children. At first, Odeh avoided endorsing the murders, but then he asserted that Palestinians have “a right to struggle” against Israel. He cited the first intifada—with its thousands of bombings, shootings and other attacks—as an example of “struggle” that is “fully justified.”

Pressed by the interviewer as to whether throwing rocks at Jews is legitimate, Odeh replied: “I always blame the occupation for being guilty. I cannot tell the nation how to struggle, where and which target to throw the rock. I do not put red lines on the Arab Palestinian nation.”

Knesset member Itzik Shmuly denounced Odeh’s statements as “angering and disappointing.” Shmuly represents the Zionist Union, better known as the Labor Party. One of the eight groups signing this week’s statement was Ameinu, better known as the U.S. wing of the Labor Party. I wonder why they didn’t include Shmuly in their denunciation of “incitement.” I guess if “our guy” says it, then it’s not incitement.

In an interview with Al-Arabiya television on March 4, 2016, Odeh was asked about the wave of Palestinian knife attacks against Israelis. He replied: “We should examine our history and the history of the nations to determine strategies. There is no doubt that a popular intifada is most beneficial to the Palestinian people. I, from my place, cannot tell the Palestinian people how to resist.”

Just six weeks ago, on June 18, Odeh took part in a conference in eastern Jerusalem sponsored by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP). The PFLP and the DFLP are terrorist groups that have murdered and maimed many hundreds of Israelis—and Americans—since the 1960s. That’s who Ayman Odeh chooses to associate with. And that’s why he deserves to be criticized.

I’m not surprised that J Street and Americans for Peace Now signed the “anti-incitement” declaration. Pointing an accusing finger at Israel has become their trademark. But I am profoundly disappointed that the National Council of Jewish Women would sully its good name by allowing itself to be dragged into this smear of the Jewish state.

I’m giving the leaders of the NCJW the benefit of the doubt, assuming that they were misled by the other signatories. Perhaps they did not see the final text before they gave their approval. Maybe they didn’t carefully research the claims that are made in the anti-Israel declaration. They can rectify this error by immediately disavowing the declaration.

* * *

Well, that's what I think and invite you to comment.

Look for my new book in October, "A Father's Story: My Fight for Justice Against Iranian Terror"

France's push for an international peace conference would be a disaster for Israel

Yitzhak Rabin would have opposed it, too.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected France’s call for an international conference to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But before anyone concludes that only “right-wingers” oppose such a conference, it’s worth recalling that one of the most outspoken critics of the conference idea was Yitzhak Rabin.

The year was 1985, and Rabin was Israel’s minister of defense. Arab leaders had been pushing for the convening of an international peace conference. Rabin and other Israeli leaders were insisting on direct Arab-Israeli negotiations.

The Reagan administration had always supported Israel’s position. But in the spring of 1985, there were media reports that Secretary of State George Shultz was starting to warm up to the idea of an international conference. A worried Rabin flew to the United States for top-level discussions.

Upon his arrival in the U.S., Rabin “made it clear he was concerned about Washington’s apparent weakening on the question of an international conference on the Middle East,” according to AIPAC’s weekly newsletter, Near East Report.
“If they are ready to make peace, let’s negotiate [directly],” Rabin was quoted as saying. “If someone wants to undermine any hope of peace, an international conference and bringing in the Syrians is the best way.”

Rabin said that in his meetings with U.S. officials, “I heard about the ‘international umbrella.’ ” That was a phrase that some administration officials had begun using to try to sugarcoat the bitter pill. The idea was that if the conference took place under the “umbrella” of international auspices, it would somehow increase the chances of achieving peace.

Rabin disagreed. “Whenever anyone mentions umbrella, it reminds me of Chamberlain and Munich,” he declared.

Rabin’s statements were pretty remarkable, when you think about it. He had formerly served as Israel’s ambassador in Washington, so he was keenly sensitive to the need not to anger U.S. officials. Yet he publicly leaked the fact that they were using that deceptive “international umbrella” term. Not only did he leak it, he openly criticized it, right there in Washington.

And he didn’t just criticize it, he used the analogy of Chamberlain selling out to Hitler at Munich. For Rabin to stand in Washington and blast the U.S. administration, even invoking a Nazi analogy, was nothing less than astonishing. It really showed what a terrible threat an international conference (or “umbrella”) poses to Israel.

Such a conference, if held today, would consist of a dozen or more Arab and European countries ganging up on Israel and demanding unilateral concessions to the Palestinians. And given reports that the Obama administration wants to see “progress” on this front before the president leaves office, one must assume the U.S. would side with the Arabs and Europeans.

The purpose of the conference would not be to achieve a genuine peace. How do we know? Because the sponsor, France, already declared earlier this year that if the conference failed to produce a Palestinian state, the French would unilaterally recognize one. That’s the goal – not peace, but a Palestinian state, as quickly as possible, no matter the risks to Israel. Which is why the Palestinian Authority’s inciter-in-chief, Mahmoud Abbas, is energetically supporting the conference idea.

During the past year, France has suffered the worst terrorist attacks in the world since 9/11. One would think the French would understand the folly of appeasing Islamic terrorists and oppose creating what would be an overwhelmingly Muslim Palestinian terrorist state. Yet just the opposite has happened.

Why? Because the French are afraid. They are afraid of angering the Muslim world, afraid of more Muslim terrorism. The French believe that since they are defending themselves against ISIS – French planes are bombing Muslim terrorists in Syria and the French police have been shutting down pro-terror mosques – they have to prove they champion Muslim causes. Supporting Palestinian statehood is France’s way of trying to appease the Muslim world.


The international conference proposal is just another way of throwing Israel under the bus. No wonder Israelis – Likud or Labor, right or left – aren’t too excited about that prospect.

A version of this post appears in the Jewish Press.

In Israeli politics, not all is at it seems

This from Jonathan Tobin at Commentary -

Lapid is not that far different from Netanyahu.  And I think that's a good thing.

Lapid’s rise reflects the way the overwhelming majority of Israelis have moved on from their prior obsession with the peace process. Since the Palestinians have repeatedly rejected peace and used Israeli withdrawals to create terror enclaves like Gaza, there is a consensus that until a sea change occurs among Arabs, more such concessions are unthinkable.

Essentially, the response (or lack thereof) by the Palestinian Authority to first Barak's, then Sharon's, then Olmert's offers or steps towards a settlement with the PA, has irked the Israeli in the street.
So, anyone who thought that Yair Lapid was the messiah of Israeli politics is in for a rude awakening.  Israeli politics is never boring.

Read the full column.

Stephen M. Flatow

Why Did Netanyahu Free My Daughter's Killer?

Here's a Forward Op-Ed criticizing the Israeli government decision to free more than 1,000 jailed terrorists for Gilad Schalit.  It's written by Frimet Roth whose daughter was murdered in the Sbarro bombing of August 2009.

The full article is Why Did Netanyahu Free My Daughter's Killer? – Forward.com

What's your opinion?

alisa flatow stephen israel terror gilad shalit

The enemy within Israel - maybe it's the media, too

Caroline Glick takes on the Left, the Israeli and American media, and Saeb Erekat in her latest column in the Jerusalem Post. Column One: Bringing down Bibi

The lede -

The media and the US administration are again colluding with the Israeli Left’s political leadership to overthrow the Netanyahu government.

Why would she say that you may ask? Because two news stories received disparate treatment by the pols, other writers and the talking heads.

Last Friday, Saeb Erekat, the Palestinian Authority’s chief peace negotiator with Israel, published an op-ed in Britain’s Guardian newspaper in which he declared eternal war on the Jewish state. This he did by asserting that any peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians that does not permit the immigration of some 7 million foreign Arabs to Israel will be “completely untenable.”

Whoa! Is he saying what it sounds like he's saying? That if Israel doesn't allow the entry of everyone tagged as a refugee to within pre-1967, there will continue a state of war? Sounds like it to Glick and to me, too.

The second article was Tom Friedman’s latest column in The New York Times. Throughout his interminable career, Friedman has identified with Israel’s radical Left and so been the bane of all non-leftist governments.

In his latest screed, he compared Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to someone in the throes of an LSD trip. Friedman harangued Netanyahu for failing to convince his cabinet to agree to the Obama administration’s demand to abrogate Jewish property rights in Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem for another 90 days. He argued that by doing so, Israel – with some help from the Palestinians – is destroying all chance of peace.

So on the one hand, the chief Palestinian negotiator declared eternal war. And on the other hand, Friedman condemned Netanyahu – for the gazillionth time.

And characteristically, the Israeli media ignored Erekat’s article and gave Friedman’s screed around the- clock coverage.

I think Glick is onto something here. It goes beyond and free and open press in a country where everyone is entitled to have, and does have, an opinion about everything. It goes to the essence of Israel's existence as a Jewish state. Flood the country with Muslims and in a year Israel is gone.

Don't agree with Erekat, then face eternal war.

Well, that's what I have to say.

Stephen M. Flatow

Humiliation versus murder, which do you choose?

Pete McDonough, Jr., a former press agent for NJ Governor Christine Whitman, has just returned from the Middle East as an American paid PR consultant to the Palestinian Authority.

His taxpayer paid trip resulted in a column appearing in the Star-Ledger, “For Palestinians, daily humiliation.”

“Ask any Palestinian on the streets of Ramallah to describe his or her life, especially those who travel around the occupied territory, and “humiliation” is among the first words uttered.”

Now, I don’t have any objection to my money going to educate others around the world, and the Palestinians can, in my opinion, use a lot of education when it comes to PR. However, when that teacher, in this case McDonough, enters the political fray, I think he’s crossed the line.

“Travel in the region for Palestinians always involves being stopped at checkpoints, ushered out of their cars and through narrow inspection points before being allowed to go from one part of their country to another.”[“Country?” The P.A. was offered one in 2000 but turned it down.-Ed.]

“As an American with in a consular vehicle, the checkpoints are no bother. If I were Palestinian, I could look forward to possibly being detained and searched for no reason other than my nationality and route of travel.” [The checkpoints exist to stop murderers from entering Israel. Their success is well documented.-Ed.]

“The stories from Palestinians I worked with bear an unsettling resemblance to the tales of racial profiling in states throughout our own country. The profiling in Palestine, though every bit as dehumanizing is omnipresent.” [Young boys and women are recruited as suicide bombers. –Ed.]

“Had I spent the last week working with Israeli officials, I have no doubt that they would have just as profoundly opened my eyes to the daily threats that their own people suffer through. I have no reason to expect that those threats are any less pervasive or pernicious than the humiliation experienced by Palestinians. The Arab-Israeli conflict is more than anyone could hope to understand in a short visit, even one involving meeting with cabinet ministers and other ranking government officials.” [So, he didn’t ask any questions about why the checkpoints exist? –Ed.]

“The situation is even more complicated by the political pressures to which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is subjected by hardliners in his government who insist that he not budge at all on plans to resume the expansion of settlements, and by the irrational demands of Hamas extremists who insist that Palestinian President Mahmood Abbas reject any peace negotiations unless Israelis withdraw completely from any and all occupied territory.”

New Jersey politics may be rough and tumble as McDonough knows, but it doesn’t result in suicide bombings and military retaliation. Yes, Mr. McDonough, the situation is “complicated” and until you learn the difference between sitting shiva for a murdered terror victim (as I did) and humiliation suffered at a checkpoint, I think you should keep your comments to yourself.

Read the full column.

Well, that's what I have to say.

Frida Ghitis - "Middle East peace requires courage"

Frida Ghitis writing in the Miami Herald - "Middle East peace requires courage"

One of the most extraordinary moments in recent Middle East history came in 1993, when the world discovered that Israeli and Palestinian teams had held secret peace talks. Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, formerly sworn enemies, came together on the White House lawn, formalizing their commitment to peace. The decision, and that memorably awkward hand-shake, prodded along by President Bill Clinton, required uncommon courage. They called it the Peace of the Brave. [Ed. - Yes, they did and it gave rise to a new vocabulary, such as, a Sacrifice for the Peace, to describe the murders of innocent civilians such as Alisa Flatow.]

The term deserves dusting off because it highlights one of the key requirements for peace, and one whose absence could prove the undoing of the new effort unfolding under U.S. sponsorship. Bravery, courage, are indispensable because no matter how comforting the idea of peace, reaching an agreement between Israelis and Palestinians is a frighteningly dangerous process.

To reach a deal, the leaders -- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas -- must make compromises that will break the hearts of millions of their followers. They will have to accept terms that will anger some enough that they will kill. And they will have to sign on to borders that could make their land -- especially in Israel's case -- vulnerable to unthinkable risks.

The euphoric events of 1993 gave way to disappointment, but they also helped draw the blueprint guiding the new quest for peace.

No one claims the new effort suffers from unrealistic expectations. Skepticism about its chances for success prevails. I call it skepticism and not pessimism, because many who claim peace is impossible in fact hope for failure. By their standards, they are optimistic.

When the leaders of Iran, Hamas or Hezbollah say the process will fail they remind us of their plan. Their solution is the destruction of Israel and its replacement with a fundamentalist Muslim regime; an alternative, backed by weapons, militias and money, that looms over the peace talks like a thick dark shadow, but also provides some of the impetus to persevere.

Ironically, the negotiating sides already agree on the solution's rough outlines. With the possible exception of the future of Jerusalem, everyone knows what is required for peace.

Even more frustrating is that the subject of closest agreement has become the most contentious. Partly because of missteps by the Obama administration, the issue of settlements has moved front and center and could provide a timid Mahmoud Abbas a way out of the talks. Abbas says without a settlement freeze he will pull out. Netanyahu says that, like all other differences, this should be resolved "through direct continuous talks.''

Already in the Clinton days that problem was essentially solved. Settlements take up about 4 percent of the disputed land. Most settlers live on a few large blocs, which in an agreement would be swapped for equal amounts of land within Israel proper.

To be sure, tough disagreements remain. But a basic obstacle to peace today is that Abbas, the Palestinian representative, appears to lack the power, the legitimacy and, yes, the courage, to close a deal.

Abbas, who rules only over the West Bank, asked for permission not just from Palestinians but from the Arab League, to start negotiations. When talks started in Washington, Hamas, which controls Gaza's 1.5 million Palestinians, signaled its rejection by murdering more Israelis. The London-based Arab newspaper Al-Quds al-Arabi editorialized that Abbas "negotiates without being granted the authorization to do so by his people.''

Adding irony to this sad situation, majorities of Palestinians and Israelis desperately want a peace deal. Contrary to what an ill-informed article in Time recently argued, Israelis are eager for peace. For years a vast majority of Israelis has expressed strong support for a two-state solution. A recent War and Peace Index poll found 80 percent support negotiations, easily outnumbering opponents of compromise.

A majority of Palestinians also back negotiations. But in the Arab world, public opinion carries less weight. Writing in the influential Arab daily Ashar al-Awsat, Mamoun Fandy wrote, ``The Palestinian division is not simply an internal one, as some may think, but is first an Arab division, and secondly a regional one.'' Even if Abbas achieved an agreement, he argued, he would find much of the Arab world pressuring Palestinians to reject it.

That's why Abbas announced shortly after leaving Washington that, "I can't allow myself to make even one concession.'' If he meant that, the new peace process is already over. Clearly, these are not the words from a man with the courage to make the peace of the brave. But then, Arafat ultimately lost his nerve. Maybe Abbas can find his.

Read the column on-line.

I know that Netanyahu has made previous decisions that did not rest well with sectors of his political support, but he made them anyway. Abbas, considered a terrorist by Yitzhak Rabin, does not, in my opinion, have either the willingness or the guts to make similar decisions. Will we back to base one again? The next days and weeks will tell.

What do you think?

Carolyn Glick at jpost.com - Getting Obama off Israel's back

Caroline Glick's most recent column at jpost.com takes aim at Israeli prime minister Netanyahu's policy speech and President Obama's recent actions.

Netanyahu's speech was an eloquent, rational and at times impassioned defense of Israel. For Israeli ears, after years of former prime minister Ehud Olmert's and former foreign minister Tzipi Livni's continuous assaults on Israeli rights, and their strident defenses of capitulation to the Palestinians and the Syrians, Netanyahu's address was a breath of fresh air. But it is hard to see how it could have possibly had any lasting impact on Obama or his advisers.

The problem with delivering "a rational speech?" "To be moved by rational argument, a person has to be open to rational discourse." Glick then looks at some of Obama's actions.

First,

If rational thought was the basis for the administration's policymaking on foreign affairs, North Korea's decisions to test long range ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons, send two US citizens to long prison terms and then threaten nuclear war should have made the administration reconsider its current policy of seeking the approval and assistance of North Korea's primary enabler - China - for any action it takes against Pyongyang.

Second,

Similar to Obama's refusal to reassess his failed policy regarding North Korea, his nonreaction to the fraudulent Iranian election shows that he will not allow facts to interfere with his slavish devotion to his ideological canon that claims that no enemy is unappeasable and no ally deserves automatic support. Far from standing with the democratic dissidents now risking their lives to oppose Iran's sham democracy, the administration has reportedly expressed concern that the current postelection protests will destabilize the regime.

At the same time, "NETANYAHU'S SPEECH was a much-needed strong defense. But it was not a perfect defense. It suffered from two flaws that may come back to haunt the premier in the years to come."

To read the full column and the risk Obama's and Netanyahu's actions pose, go to Our World: Obama's losing streak and us.

Getting Middle East Peace Process Restarted

David Makovsky, a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, writes in today's Wall Street Journal that there is a way to bridge the gap between the approach to settlements as set forth by Barack Obama and Benjamin Netanyahu.

The issue of settlements highlights broad philosophical differences about how to approach Arab-Israeli peace. Neoconservatives such as Norman Podhoretz have favored a hands-off approach. In contrast, foreign-policy "realists," including Zbigniew Brzezinski and Brent Scowcroft, favor imposing a peace plan.

So what does he suggest?

The only way to deal with the settlement issue is to render it moot by widening it to peacemaking and heading straight into the final negotiations on territory.

Read the full article here.

Daniel Gordis - In Perspective: For the sake of clarity, a thought experiment

While as a rule I do not post entire articles, a May 14 column by Daniel Gordis appearing in the Jerusalem Post deserves it. Here it is:

"In Perspective: For the sake of clarity, a thought experiment

He was in his 20s, the young man with the question after my lecture. He couldn't have asked it more kindly or gently. Without a hint of cynicism or anger, he expressed what was clearly on the minds of many of the people his age in the crowd: "Can you justify a Jewish state," he wanted to know, "when having a Jewish state means giving up on so many of Judaism's values?"

Here's what he didn't say: Israel is the root of evil in the Middle East. It's the cause of checkpoints, of roadblocks, of a big ugly wall that runs along a border no one has agreed to. The Palestinians are desperate, and in the massive imbalance of power, they have no chance and no hope. Israel is the nuclear bully in a region that, were it not for Israel's existence, would no longer be on the front page. To achieve peace in the Middle East, Israel just needs to be subdued. Break Israel's intransigence, and we'll finally see progress.

That was his unspoken claim, and now it's also the position of the Obama administration. At AIPAC's recent Policy Conference, Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. John Kerry made it clear that for the US to support Israel on Iran, Israel must settle the Palestinian problem once and for all. It has been widely reported that Rahm Emanuel, in an off-the-record session, said precisely the same thing. After decades of tacit agreement that the US would remain silent about Israel's nuclear capability, a State Department official publicly suggested that Israel sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, as if, on the eve of Iran's going nuclear and with Pakistani weapons in danger of falling into the hands of the Taliban, Israel's nuclear arsenal is the world's most serious concern.

A new message is afloat - Israel is the problem, and the US has had enough. Even the pope couldn't help himself. His comments about the victims of the Holocaust were so tepid as to be outrageous, but he had no problem calling urgently for an immediate Palestinian state, as if Israelis haven't tried to create one for decades.

The young American Jews in my audience, clearly struggling with the morality of a Jewish state, now have the Obama administration and the pope echoing all their misgivings.

I have no illusions that all this can be changed overnight, but with the upcoming Binyamin Netanyahu-Barack Obama meetings putting Israel into the spotlight once again, I'd like to propose the following thought experiment - at least to these young American Jews, and possibly to Obama himself.

IMAGINE THAT ISRAELIS decide that by Jerusalem Day, this coming week, they want a deal. So we take down the security fence. We remove the checkpoints. We open all the roads, and Gaza's sea and air routes. We agree publicly to return to something closely approximating the pre-1967 borders, and we accede to the demands that parts of Jerusalem be internationally governed, or even put under Palestinian control.

Does this end the conflict? Of course it doesn't. The Hamas Charter calls not only for the destruction of Israel, but for Islamic war on Jews everywhere. (Why do we consistently refuse to believe that Hamas means what it says?) What would change? The noose would tighten. The rockets would be fired from a shorter distance and the demand for the return of refugees (thus ending the Jewishness of the state) would persist. As was the case when Israel left Lebanon in May 2000 or Gaza in the summer of 2005, Israel's enemies would smell a weakened, bloodied state and would prepare for the next stage of their war.

But peace would not have come. Much as we all want this conflict to end, does anyone really doubt that? There is, as honest brokers must admit, nothing that Israel can do to end this conflict.

NOW, HOWEVER, TRY the opposite side of the thought experiment. Imagine that the Palestinians decide that they have tired of the conflict, or their electorate begins its long-overdue rebellion and insists on a settlement. So the Palestinians, Hamas and Fatah, demand everything Israel's agreed to above - an end to roadblocks and the wall, an opening of Gaza, a bridge or a tunnel between Gaza and the West Bank and a return to the 1967 borders. Let's say that they even insist on Palestinian control of east Jerusalem.

But they also recognize Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state. They agree to an immediate and permanent cessation of hostilities and violence (this is a thought experiment, after all) and insist that any other outstanding issues be negotiated and resolved with the US and the Quartet as intermediaries. And they require Israelis to vote within a month, no longer, on whether to accept the deal.

Will there be Israelis who object? Will there be residents of the West Bank who will resist leaving their homes? Yes, there will be. But would an Israeli plebiscite overwhelmingly approve the offer? Without question. In a matter of weeks, three quarters of a century of bloodshed and suffering would come to an end.

This, of course, is not going to happen, because all the new rhetoric notwithstanding, and all the confusion of today's young American Jews aside, there's always been one party that's sought peace, and another that's rejected it. It was true in 1948, and it was true in Khartoum. It's no less true today.

It's never been up to us, and it's always been up to them.

But this simplistic thought experiment is worth considering not because it can be implemented, but because it brings one unfortunate truth into stark focus. Young American Jews ought to take note: Israel cannot end this conflict. It can weaken itself, but the only way it can bring peace to the region is to go out of business.

If that is what the peacemakers really seek, we'll see that soon enough, with frightening clarity.

Comments and responses can be posted on Gordis's website here.